2014 retrospective
2007 just moved back to edinburgh
2008 http://figg.livejournal.com/314729.html
2009 http://figg.livejournal.com/343616.html
2010 http://figg.livejournal.com/346046.html
2011 http://figg.livejournal.com/346441.html
2012 http://figg.livejournal.com/347985.html
2013 http://figg.livejournal.com/348330.html
From 2013-
London has been a tiring, polluted, crowded mess of a city, but it's certainly a city of opportunity.
This year I'll be helping run EMFcamp. I'd like to travel again, and head out to san francisco again, if only for the burritos. I'd like to understand education techniques a little more, and work more on my writing.
In the meantime I will bumble along, and hopefully enable more people to code.
2013 was where I got noticed. My diary entry about culture shock echoed, my programming is terrible talk got over half a million views, and Computer Anonymous is still going strong in a number of cities.
I'm not sure what 2014 means yet, but i've been riding out those blips of notoriety quite successfully.
I started the year moving across london, to escape a dodgy sub let gone wrong. I've been living with two lovely people, and a cat, since then. I'd only moved a few months earlier to relocate for Code Club.
Code Club was fun while I lasted, but I didn't last that long. Once i'd completed the python course, it was time to move on. I did get one thing to happen: Code Club released all of their teaching material online and made it fully available outside of the UK.
(And I taught Boris Johnson recursion too)
By march, I was unemployed, and celebrating my birthday in sf. It was a good birthday, but I saw more of my friends in trouble than before: a lot more toxic jobs gone wrong, rents increasing, and one or two burning out at a level of self destruction that both worries me, and surpassed me.
I arrived back and waltzed into another startup-i'd lined it up to start when I got back from the bay area. About this time the casual relationship that had kicked off in january fell apart-they had plans from long ago to leave the country, but the goodbye was awkward. We'd stopped seeing each other long before we admitted it.
Meanwhile, at the new startup: I lasted ninety days. It was good to be able to pay my rent for a bit. Unemployment brought some time to recover, to unfuck myself from the three months of startup, repair myself from another relationship lost, and to burn through my last paycheque and overdraft.
I did EMF again this year. Here is a picture of me in a cherry picker, taking a selfie http://instagram.com/p/sYG2p1rrVT/ Yes, it was that good. The day after EMF, I got on a plane to SF. Through luck and internet, I got hired at a new job, that's working out spectacularly well so far. I like the team, the product, and the company culture has been incredibly supportive for me.
I went back to the bay again at the end of the year, and it was intense as ever. Every time I've gone to america it has changed me. This time good friends in oakland helped me with my identity, i wasn't that straight after all I guess. Oakland treated me right when I was struggling through america.
2013 was a very creative year for me, 2014 has been working out the details. I got to travel again, I helped a few more people to code, and I got to eat more burritos. It's been a turbulent eighteen months since I leaped out of edinburgh. A rut i'd spent a decade making comfortable. Everything has been challenging again, finding new jobs, new friends, and new things in life continues to be hard, but worth crashing out every so often for.
On the whole, 2014 has been very good to me. 2015 looks to be on a much firmer footing. This year i'd like not to worry about paying rent or bills on time. I want to travel to seattle and somewhere else that isn't sf. I think both will happen.
Relocation to oakland/west coast timezone has been offered and it is mighty tempting. Three months into a job is still too early to decide, but I don't think I'll burn out here. I might get bored, frustrated, but that's my archetype.
I want to produce more things too, not just more posts, talks, and dad joke tweets, but code, books, games, toys. I dunno what will grab my attention long enough to complete it, but we'll see. I don't think 2015 will have any less bumps than 2014, but I think i'll be able to deal with them. Looking back over these last seven years, this is probably the best i've been in a long, long while.
2008 http://figg.livejournal.com/314729.html
2009 http://figg.livejournal.com/343616.html
2010 http://figg.livejournal.com/346046.html
2011 http://figg.livejournal.com/346441.html
2012 http://figg.livejournal.com/347985.html
2013 http://figg.livejournal.com/348330.html
From 2013-
London has been a tiring, polluted, crowded mess of a city, but it's certainly a city of opportunity.
This year I'll be helping run EMFcamp. I'd like to travel again, and head out to san francisco again, if only for the burritos. I'd like to understand education techniques a little more, and work more on my writing.
In the meantime I will bumble along, and hopefully enable more people to code.
2013 was where I got noticed. My diary entry about culture shock echoed, my programming is terrible talk got over half a million views, and Computer Anonymous is still going strong in a number of cities.
I'm not sure what 2014 means yet, but i've been riding out those blips of notoriety quite successfully.
I started the year moving across london, to escape a dodgy sub let gone wrong. I've been living with two lovely people, and a cat, since then. I'd only moved a few months earlier to relocate for Code Club.
Code Club was fun while I lasted, but I didn't last that long. Once i'd completed the python course, it was time to move on. I did get one thing to happen: Code Club released all of their teaching material online and made it fully available outside of the UK.
(And I taught Boris Johnson recursion too)
By march, I was unemployed, and celebrating my birthday in sf. It was a good birthday, but I saw more of my friends in trouble than before: a lot more toxic jobs gone wrong, rents increasing, and one or two burning out at a level of self destruction that both worries me, and surpassed me.
I arrived back and waltzed into another startup-i'd lined it up to start when I got back from the bay area. About this time the casual relationship that had kicked off in january fell apart-they had plans from long ago to leave the country, but the goodbye was awkward. We'd stopped seeing each other long before we admitted it.
Meanwhile, at the new startup: I lasted ninety days. It was good to be able to pay my rent for a bit. Unemployment brought some time to recover, to unfuck myself from the three months of startup, repair myself from another relationship lost, and to burn through my last paycheque and overdraft.
I did EMF again this year. Here is a picture of me in a cherry picker, taking a selfie http://instagram.com/p/sYG2p1rrVT/ Yes, it was that good. The day after EMF, I got on a plane to SF. Through luck and internet, I got hired at a new job, that's working out spectacularly well so far. I like the team, the product, and the company culture has been incredibly supportive for me.
I went back to the bay again at the end of the year, and it was intense as ever. Every time I've gone to america it has changed me. This time good friends in oakland helped me with my identity, i wasn't that straight after all I guess. Oakland treated me right when I was struggling through america.
2013 was a very creative year for me, 2014 has been working out the details. I got to travel again, I helped a few more people to code, and I got to eat more burritos. It's been a turbulent eighteen months since I leaped out of edinburgh. A rut i'd spent a decade making comfortable. Everything has been challenging again, finding new jobs, new friends, and new things in life continues to be hard, but worth crashing out every so often for.
On the whole, 2014 has been very good to me. 2015 looks to be on a much firmer footing. This year i'd like not to worry about paying rent or bills on time. I want to travel to seattle and somewhere else that isn't sf. I think both will happen.
Relocation to oakland/west coast timezone has been offered and it is mighty tempting. Three months into a job is still too early to decide, but I don't think I'll burn out here. I might get bored, frustrated, but that's my archetype.
I want to produce more things too, not just more posts, talks, and dad joke tweets, but code, books, games, toys. I dunno what will grab my attention long enough to complete it, but we'll see. I don't think 2015 will have any less bumps than 2014, but I think i'll be able to deal with them. Looking back over these last seven years, this is probably the best i've been in a long, long while.